PR Newswire·Oct 23, 2025, 8:00 AM ET

Ginkgo Bioworks in Partnership with STRM.BIO and University of British Columbia in Project to Develop In Vivo CAR Therapies Under ARPA-H's EMBODY Program

Ginkgo Bioworks, STRM.BIO, & the University of British Columbia (UBC) announced a collaboration under the ARPA-H EMBODY program to develop in vivo CAR therapies for autoimmune diseases.
The partnership aims to leverage Ginkgo's RNA construct design expertise & UBC's self-amplifying RNA motifs to create long-lived, tissue-specific, & highly potent CAR therapies.
The project, titled "IN VIvo T-cell Engineering with Megakaryocyte EVs" (INVITE-ME), combines STRM.BIO's megakaryocyte-derived extracellular vesicle delivery system with Ginkgo's RNA design capabilities.
This approach enables in situ engineering of T cells within the body by delivering genetic cargo to bone marrow-resident cells, eliminating the need for costly ex vivo manipulation.
The initiative targets diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) & myasthenia gravis (MG) by selectively eliminating autoreactive B & T cells without genome editing.
Ginkgo will utilize its nucleic acid AI & machine learning capabilities to identify & optimize constructs for durable therapeutic expression.
The collaboration underscores Ginkgo's commitment to advancing RNA engineering & establishing itself as a credible partner for RNA cargo design in therapeutics.